"Deus Caritas Est"

I find myself growing increasingly frustrated with what I like to call "lake of fire Christianity." Prime examples of this include most contemporary Christian fiction and the group that witnessed on campus last week. These people seem more concerned with beating Christianity into unbelievers than anything else. They think that presenting images of eternal torture and damnation, of an angry and ever-condemning God, are the things that will cause others to follow Him.

I'm not denying that these things are true. Failure to follow Christ will result in being separated from His grace when all is said and done. And, after all, "He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that He is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead" (Acts 10:42). I think that C.S. Lewis describes the urgent nature of the faith most eloquently in Mere Christianity:

When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else--something it never entered your head to conceive--comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistable love or irresistable horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you will choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.

Obviously there is a lot at stake with witnessing. We aren't just professing our beliefs and leaving it at that... The souls of our fellow men are at stake. This is an undeniable truth.

That having been said, I believe that witnessing can lose its purpose for people, and when it does, they fail to exercise the necessary prowess and skill involved in intelligently presenting the Truth to others. When groups get caught up in the Great Proclamation, in searching for converts not out of love for God and love for fellow man, but only to satisfy a requirement that was handed down to us from on high--well, it is the one of the worst mistakes of all. Any sort of apologist should have a firm understanding of the human heart to which he is speaking, and a strong desire to see that heart turned to Christ. I had a friend during high school that once said to me, "I think I've converted about six people so far this year!" Well, that's well and good, but conversion is not a numbers game. If I can convince even one person to turn to God during my lifetime, I will feel as if I've done a great thing for the Kingdom. Of course I will try to reach out to all of those in need, but always with a heart that is fierce for the Spirit, and eager to work as God's hands in this world.

To quote Lewis again, from Mere Christianity:

People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, "If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing."

I believe in preaching not a "gospel of rules," but rather a "gospel of love." Certainly there are "rules" involved in Christianity, but we should always be sure that nobody becomes hopelessly entangled in them.

Even if you're not Catholic, I highly recommend reading Pope Benedict XVI's latest encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est." This piece of literature and its explanations of the different types of emotion and their relation to God is a great piece of work. And it helps me to come to a greater understanding of how I would like to witness to people. I want to show people that “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16). All of the business about judging and damning those who are not in the Light only serves to push people further from God in most situations. As Christians, we should first and foremost keep our minds towards the love and praise of God, and the desire to do good, not only to avoid the flames of Hell, but to express our joy towards the One who has saved us all. Once a relationship can be established with the Lord, removing the various sins and problems that keep us bound to the things of this world will follow naturally. It won't be easy, but God, the Great Love, will help us to find our way. That is what people should be told about Christianity.